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Packed lunches should be banned, a new report has recommended (Picture: PA)

Unhealthy packed lunches should be banned in schools, a new government-commissioned report is to recommend.

Pupils should also be stopped from leaving at lunchtime to eat at fast-food restaurants, the review by the founders of the restaurant chain Leon will suggest.

With only 43 per cent of children taking up the option of school dinners, according to the School Food Plan, more needs to be done to encourage healthy eating.

Leon co-founder Henry Dimbleby said the ‘dark days of the Turkey Twizzler’ were over and a greater emphasis needed to be placed on getting children to eat much-improved school dinners.

‘More than a half of our children bring packed lunches into school and two-thirds of those have crisps in them and two-thirds have confectionery in them,’ he said.

‘The best schools – the schools that have good food – find ways of making packed lunch the less exciting option. Some of them ban packed lunch altogether.’

A nutritious lunch can help boost performance (Picture: Reuters)

He added: ‘We did a survey of 400 headteachers. Over 90 per cent believe strongly that food has a direct effect on academic achievement and behaviour.

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‘The NHS currently spends £6billion on food-related diseases and 20 per cent of children are obese by the time they leave primary school.’

Only 1 per cent of packed lunches currently meet the nutritional standards of school food, the report claims.

Sharon Hodgson MP, shadow children’s minister, said: ‘All the evidence shows that a filling and nutritious school lunch can improve attainment and health, and when the country is in the middle of a childhood obesity crisis, it is important that schools are doing their part to improve diets.’